It's Almost Here!

Yay!  We have snow!  Not much....not even an inch, and it's barely cold enough to keep it, but it's here.  Let's hope it stays for a couple more days!!
Colin just came out to ask me if we're going over to his friend's house.....I'm like, "huh?"  I do miss old friends who've moved on....I'm still in touch with so many people from all the chapters of my life, even if only tenuously, but there are a handful that are just gone....just kind of faded away with time, distance or emotional distance.  That's how it goes, though.  People do grow apart, friendships do disintegrate, people do change and move apart from one another....I'm just not used to it.  Some of my best and closest friends have been in my life since my childhood, so I'm really unused to letting go!  LOL!  Ah well....I wish them all a happy holiday season.
Kyle is out doing some last minute errands and things.  Thanks to my lovely benevolent employers who believe in Christmas Bonuses (thank you!!!!) I was able to give hubby some money to do a little holiday shopping.  Usually I've so overspent on the kiddo and making sure I've got something for everybody that I just tell him not to worry about it, get myself some little thing, and deal with it.  In recent years the kiddo has really gotten into doing his own shopping, and my mother, being the awesome Grandma that she is, takes him out shopping. So I do have gifts under the tree that I didn't pick out myself....but this will be the first year in a few that there will be some from Kyle!  Yay!
Today I have to wrap Colin's presents, clean the house, catch up the laundry, burn candles, watch holiday movies, make an apple pie and a blueberry pie for tomorrow night, make hamburger buns for dinner tonight.....Basic puttering.
It has been a very hard year, financially, and we've still got a few debts to pay off and some challenges ahead that we'll be carrying into the new year, but otherwise it's been a good year.  We're very blessed.  Kyle and I both have jobs that we enjoy doing, that we're good at, working for good people.  Colin is having an amazing year in 6th grade, making High Honor Roll, enjoying a variety of friends, the admiration of his teachers, and being chosen for special projects. Both mine and Kyle's extended families are doing fairly well....there are some hitches here and there, many of them financial, but everybody is hanging in there.  We have many good friends, good family, good health, a lovely home, each other....it really is a Wonderful Life!  lol
I do hope that everybody can find at least a moment of peace this holiday season and step back and see all the good things they've got.  Happy Holidays!!

The Battle of the Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm spreading my holiday baking out over the entire week this year.  This wasn't really intentional or thought out....it's more a result of laziness and procrastination.  But hey, I'm embracing it!  lol  On Saturday I spread my baking supplies all over the kitchen. On Sunday I organized it, looked through recipes, and baked these chocolate chip/peppermint checkerboard cookies that were a major PITA, gingerbread cookies from a box, and brownie bites.  Yesterday I was a little more ambitious....I did two batches of peanut butter/chocolate fudge and two batches of regular chocolate fudge and did molasses cookies.  I think it's the best molasses cookies I've made yet -- they weren't so soft you couldn't handle them, but they weren't hard.  We'll see what Mom thinks....she's the one I know who really likes that kind of cookie.  This morning I'm a bit more in the mood.  I cleaned up the kitchen, started the laundry, then whipped up my nemesis cookie:  Chocolate Chip.

Now, most people have made chocolate chip cookies.  Right from childhood it's the one cookie that anybody with a bowl and a spoon can whip up.  I guess.  I can't.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I've made chocolate chip cookies for years, but they tend to either come out of the oven in ball form as they went in or flat because they've totally melted.  I've used recipes from here, there and everywhere....recipes that other women have used successfully and made wonderful cookies with happy children that they shared with family in holiday joy.  I get hockey pucks with chocolate chips in them.  They taste good.....once you manage to find a spot you can chew.  Kind of like the turkey dinner in Nat'l Lampoon's Christmas Vacation....only they don't even look that good.
This year I tried the recipe on the inside of the butter flavored Crisco lard package.  I followed the directions, blending, stirring and folding the appropriate amounts of time to the listed consistencies.  They look good....they're not flat, they're cookie shaped, they don't look raw or burnt and the batter sure tasted okay.  Not that I'd know, of course.....just guessing......got raw egg in it can't eat it......yeah, yeah, that.  So here's hoping they taste good, too!!  Of course, when you mix together butter flavored lard, brown sugar, vanilla, chocolate chips and some milk, egg and flour how could it taste bad?  But wait....this is me we're talking about!!  LOL  I can make a cheesecake that I could sell for $10 a slice all day and night.  I can make a homemade pizza that has my boys nearly in tears tearing into it.  I've perfected my fudge, found the best brownie recipe and mastered it, and even moved on successfully to decorative baking with these checkerboard cookies.  I must NOT be defeated by basic chocolate chip cookies!!!!

Colin is sleeping off a two day migraine.  Hopefully when he wakes up he'll be pain free and able to taste test my cookies.  Kyle's working until tonight so he won't get to try them until much later....I can't wait that long for reassurement and worship in my role as domestic goddess!!!  So if the kiddo is still achy I'll have to start hitting people up to pop out and eat baked goods.  And that's more difficult than you'd think.....even on a bright sunny day with clear roads.  So here's hoping!!!

December Updates

Well, we got the garage finished.  The trim is a color called Moon Crater, which is a gunmetal grey purplish color.  Not quite what I remember buying, but I like it.  What a huge PITA -- which is why I didn't do it for so long.  Hopefully it's a long, long time before I have to do that again!!!

Not a great deal different or new happening.  MIL gave hubby the moulah to get his truck fixed for an early Christmas present.  He ordered the ignition parts he'll need and he'll be pulling the starter today and taking it in to buy a new one.  Can't wait for it to be done!!!  I'll have my car back!!  No more evenings stuck here.....as if I had anywhere else to go!

The kiddo is home today with a migraine.  The headache is beginning to let up a little, but the light sensitivity is brutal.  Handy thing it's a cloudy day out. Hopefully it lets up by this evening....I really hate him missing school.  But there's no sense in forcing him to attend when he can't think for the fireworks behind his eyes.

Looking forward to Christmas Eve at my Aunt Heather's house again this year.  Taylor took Mom, Heather and I out to a new Italian Restaurant in town called Vino Vidi Vici and it was absolutely awesome!!  Then afterwards to Handel's Messiah performed at Sacred Heart Church by the Northern NY Orchestra and Potsdam Choir with some guest vocalists from Crane School of Music.  It was lovely.  Loved the choir and the orchestra....not such a big fan of the operatic style of singing, but they were very talented and I'm glad I got to see it.  I'd like to see them perform some other works.

Had a Gold Canyon Candle party that went south.  Instead of taking 5-10 business days for the orders to come in it took 5-6 weeks.  There were a couple of bad checks that had to be taken care of which accounted for a week to two weeks of that, but beyond that I haven't been able to pin down exactly what went wrong.  I have some suspicions, but no evidence of any kind.  But everybody has their products or their refunds at this point in time so it's all good.  And I absolutely LOVE my holiday candles!!  The house smells sooooo good!! I will have to find a new demonstrator, though.  My party guests wouldn't attend another party with the same one, even if there were absolute proof that the delay was none of her doing.  She did keep in constant contact with me, though, despite the discomfort of the situation.  She didn't dodge any of my calls, texts or emails.  I give points for that because I've had people I couldn't get in touch with on a good day!!!  lol

Got our Christmas tree at Breezy Maples Farm again this year.  It's not as magnificent as the one we got last year, but it is magnificent!  I decorated it in all red and gold ornaments, which I bought on clearance last January.  It's very beautiful, but I really miss all my special ornaments that I've collected over the years.  I'll box up all these ornaments, label it and set it all in the back corner of the attic.  Maybe I'll do this again someday, though I doubt it.  I'll probably pass the ornaments on to somebody starting their first tree or something like that.  I mean, this was an 8' tree, so it'll be plenty  and more than to be a starter kit for somebody!!

I've got the Christmas shopping done.  There isn't as much this year, but nobody really needs anything.  I've got to do a little finangling with the bills this week, but nothing I can't manage.  And thankfully there are three paychecks this month!!  That helped, that and hubby getting some overtime.  LOVE OT!!

Had a lovely Thanksgiving/Christmas visit in Rochester with BIL and SIL.  It was a good trip down and back and everybody had a good time.  No big stresses, no problems, nobody had to die.  Which is always a good thing!!!   They got us a Blu Ray player which is awesome! It's absolutely amazing how good that picture is on that flat screen TV!

So far it's looking like a green Christmas is coming.  Winter weather has only just started to hit a little bit, there's a dusting of snow here and there.  Mostly, though, it rains and the wind blows.  It gets cold enough to freeze everything  but then I pops back up into the 40's.  It sucks!!!  I love a Christmas with a ton of snow....it's depressing when there isn't any.  All the signs pointed to a cold, snowy season this year but so far we're not seeing any of that.  Maybe we're going to get slammed.  Who knows.  It's not the first year it's been like this....I remember Christmases in my childhood walking to my grandmother's in the rain to celebrate Christmas Eve.

I haven't been going to the gym the last couple of months.  Margaret has gone down south to where her other son lives and is having various joints replaced.  She had one done, then recovery in a nursing home, then scheduled for the next.  She probably won't be home until sometime in the New Year.  Without her I don't go to the gym at all.  And being the highly motivated person that I am not I don't do a damned thing here by myself.  I really need to.  I'm getting very soft.  Haven't gained the weight back, thankfully, but it's not helping my blood glucose to sit on my ass so much.  But I've never really been motivated.  Maybe for a New Year's Present for myself I'll get a membership to the gym downtown.  Now that I've been going to a gym and known how the machines work and stuff I don't have to have the customer service I get at Heart to Heart.  I love it out there, but I can't afford it on my own and it's more than 20 miles away.

I'm supposed to be doing my holiday baking right now.  I've got everything exploded all over the kitchen and have baked brownie bites, checkerboard cookies and oatmeal cookies.  Then I went to bed and haven't started back up again today.  Just feeling very lazy and unenthusiastic.  Still in my PJ's....maybe a nice hot shower will help me feel more awake and raring to do something productive.  I did change the kitty litter and put the trash out this morning....so I'm not a complete waste!!!  ;-)

So Happy Holidays to all!!!